Last night Clarkson said the gagging order became "pointless" when his name was linked with the allegations on websites including Twitter.
"If you take an injunction out it isn't an injunction because Twitter and Facebook mean that everybody knows anyway," he told the Telegraph.
"They are incredibly expensive to maintain and there's an assumption of guilt about which you can do nothing because I'm as bound by it as everybody else."
Clarkson said he was moved to lift the order after his mother and three children, Emily, Finlo and Katya, were affected by the online rumours.
"I wanted to get rid of it and it will save us a hell of a lot of heartache," he added.
Clarkson said he regretted his actions from the day he took out the injunction, adding that his mother was seriously ill at the time he went to the High Court.
The presenter and newspaper columnist said his decision was also influenced by the costs involved in the legal process, which were "unbelievably expensive".
He added: "She is now free to go and flog her story and Max Clifford, who's handling it, will be trying to do a deal."
Clarkson was granted the gagging order last September after rumours surfaced that he was sleeping with his former wife, Alexandra Hall, despite being married to his current wife, Frances.
“Incredibly, she insisted the reason she was demanding this money was to defend The Stig’s honour. She believed Jeremy had treated him poorly, and was responsible for his sacking from Top Gear.
“But last year she said she wanted £300,000 and, at the same time, Jeremy’s mother was taken ill. It was the final straw. Jeremy has taken his fair amount of stick from the public and it doesn’t bother him.
“But he wasn’t prepared to put his sick mother through it all so he decided to take out an injunction in the hope it would stop anything from ever coming to light.
“But last week his mum finally got some good news and Jeremy thought ‘sod it’ and figured now was the perfect time to overturn it.
“In Jeremy’s eyes his ex-wife has been a thorn in the side of the Clarkson family for a very long time. There is now just an overwhelming sense of relief that this is all over, and the Clarksons can get on with their lives in peace.”
Clarkson, 51, married Ms Hall in 1989 but they divorced a year later.
He married his manager, army officer’s daughter Frances, 50, in 1993.
Sources close to Clark claim Ms Hall – who has appeared on the BBC show Dragons’ Den, left him after six months for a member of their bridal party. The injunction had banned any reporting of “sexual or other intimate acts or dealings” between the pair and the BBC presenter’s “private thoughts and feelings, his health and other financial affairs”.
But last night multi-millionaire Clarkson laid into gagging orders, which have been taken out by a number of high-profile celebrities.
The dad-of-three’s case did not involve a super-injunction. But it did prevent Ms Hall from publishing any details of their life together.
Clarkson said: “I overturned my own injunction because injunctions don’t work. If you take out an injunction there is the automatic assumption that you must be hiding something.
“Bear in mind my wife and I took out this injunction – it wasn’t just me.
“But we basically realised, with Twitter and Facebook, you aren’t really able to defend yourself any more. Now there’s been this change – not really in the law but more the interpretation of it – you can no longer get an injunction and just sit on it; now the court forces you to go to trial which is massively expensive. And even if I win it all goes on Twitter and Facebook and once again I can’t do anything.
“But if I lose, I’ve got to pay her costs. Injunctions are a complete nonsense.
“I rue the day when I was advised to take one out.”
Entrepreneur Ms Hall, of Godalming, Surrey, last night said she was delighted the injunction has been withdrawn.
She added: “I just want the truth to come out. It feels like a huge cloud has been lifted from above me.”
Asked whether she denies trying to blackmail Mr Clarkson, Ms Hall’s spokesman said: “Yes. She can prove that is untrue. She told me that is totally untrue. She can and will prove that.”
Ms Hall appeared on Dragons’ Den in November 2005 to get funding for a venture selling olives to pubs.
She is thought to have remarried after divorcing Clarkson but separated from her second husband in 2001.
Earlier this year, our sister paper the Sunday Mirror revealed Clarkson had been cheating on his wife with pretty blonde Phillipa Sage during an international tour with the show.
Frances is credited as the brains behind “Brand Clarkson”. She sprung to his rescue after he was pictured kissing his former producer Elaine Bedell in 2000.
He laughed off claims of an affair, saying they were “colleagues fooling around” and Frances insisted: “It’s simple – they work together, they’re matey.”
Other stars behind the injunctions
ENGLAND skipper John Terry was granted a super-injunction in 2009 after an affair with Vanessa Perroncel, ex-girlfriend of his fellow football international Wayne Bridge.
But a High Court judge lifted it in 2010, allowing Terry to be named.
Footballer Ryan Giggs won a gagging order against ex-Big Brother star Imogen Thomas after they ended their secret affair.
He was outed on Twitter and later named in Parliament by Lib Dem MP John Hemming. BBC political editor Andrew Marr took out a super-injunction in 2008 to prevent reporting of an extra-marital affair with a female journalist.
Marr himself lifted the order in April, saying he was embarrassed by his decision to seek it.
Other celebrities un-masked after they obtained orders include:
Howard Donald of Take That, chef Gordon Ramsay’s father-in-law Chris Hutcheson and former RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin.
All about: Jeremy Clarkson
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